Transitions and the Year 7 experience: A report from the 12 to 18 Project

This article discusses studentsʹ comments about the experience of shifting from primary to secondary schooling, and of their first year of secondary school. The material was gathered from research carried out in three Victorian primary schools and four Victorian secondary schools in 1993 and 1994. This article discusses the meanings students give to their experience of transition against earlier research and policy documents which use different methodologies and which talk of different cultures of primary and secondary schools. It argues that student reactions are more complex than are indicated by methodologies which take comments at face value and that their concerns challenge some common assumptions about the problem of disruption in the break between primary and secondary. The article also notes widespread changes in studentsʹ lunchtime activities compared with primary school and discusses ways students assess the new curriculum and teaching styles of the secondary school.